


In The Morning

by CaptainKaysno



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst, Gen, Graphic Description, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, Non-Consensual Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:28:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28143864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainKaysno/pseuds/CaptainKaysno
Summary: Here is the…Here is the truth.The truth.He can’t remember what he was going to say.
Relationships: Dave | Technoblade & Toby Smith | Tubbo & Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 65





	In The Morning

**Author's Note:**

> This is for anon who asked "Some sleepy bois angst? Pretty please??"
> 
> I am almost certain that they wanted Dream SMP but Hunger Games AU are some of my favorite so I hope that this is okay with them?? Title is taken from 'Losing Your Memory' by Ryan Star.

Sure, Queen Sofia has her bloodied nails and her snow white claws wrapped around her ancient and tarnished crown. She has them wrapped around her crown, and around the last of a flaming country. 

She may even them so tightly wrapped around Wilbur that she’s leaving bleeding scratches. Wilbur can endure that pain. He’s had eight long years to learn how to endure it but now that he knows that miles and miles away there is a rebellion setting fires to factories that make peacekeepers suits, and exploding dams?  


It’s enough to make the gilded cage that he’s been trapped into bearable more than endurable. The TV had been taken out of his room the day after the first Rebels broadcast, the phone has only ever been able to take or make calls within the palace walls. 

He’s allowed to leave only so he can make the speeches that somebody else has written for him. The teleprompter starts up with a quiet whirr, his hair has already carefully sculpted into a hairstyle he would never chose for himself. The makeup they plaster on to hide the dark circles under his eyes stink of perfume. 

“People of Panem,” Wilbur starts, reading from the teleprompter with as much enthusiasm as he can muster. He reads the whole speech, carefully timing his blinks. 

.. / --- -.- / ... .- ..-. . / -. --- / -. . .-- …

He’d spent hours teaching the others how to read and recite Morse code. Hours that he hopes are paying off now that he’s being paraded around like a monkey in a suit. 

He ends the broadcast with a smile and a wink. 

The moment that it’s done he’s marched back down to his room to entertain himself. He idly reads the books that he’d been given for a good laugh.

The knock at his door announces his dinner and - as per usual - when he answers he can only barely catch a glimpse of the delivery avox before they disappear into a hidden stairwell. 

He brings the dinner into his room, opens up the Capitol newspaper so it hides him from the camera hidden in the potted plant by the door. He grabs the roll that had been sent with the flavorful soup and desert. 

The paper slip inside of it reads - ‘Last rpt reads safe. 4 fact destroyed. T2 & T3 hve ask 4 u safe return.” He carefully tucks it in his sleeve. 

He reaches for the other roll, frowning in surprise when it comes open with nothing to show for it. That…..hardly seemed right. 

Wilbur carefully hides his anxiety as he eats his dinner, as he reads through the frankly boring journalism of upper class pricks until finally he finds an opportunity to burn the slip of paper with the candle that’s set onto the table in front of him. 

He’s still thinking about it when he finally manages to go to sleep. 

* 

The noise is what wakes him as the door breaks in on itself. A mob of white comes barging into his room. He’s pulled out of his bed and is already being yanked out into the hallway before he can think of anything to say. 

“What is happening?” Wilbur demands, his feet slipping across the tiles as the seemingly endless mobs of Peacekeepers drag him forward. He isn’t even wearing any socks, “What the fuck is going on?”

A stun baton slams against his leg and Wilbur’s vision goes white. He’s still being dragged forward when his vision returns to him. He’s gone pretty much deadweight from the high voltage, barely able to lift his head up to watch as the peacekeepers follow their leaders path.

He keeps his mouth shut as they pass through endless halls and into a courtyard. His leg feels like it’s on goddamn fire. 

Queen Sofia is standing in the courtyard. Her crown placed into the same meticulously maintained hairstyle as she was wearing earlier. Her long blue dress has been replaced with a far more simple pant and long blue jacket that goes down to her knees. 

Her lips are pressed into a thin, bloodied line as Wilbur gets thrown to his knees in front of her.

“Your majesty,” Wilbur greets, standing back up with a small smile. His leg may be screaming in pain but it’s one of the only times where he uses his height to his advantage, his 6’5 frame dwarfing her 5’1 so he makes the effort. “May I ask what I’ve done to deserve such a rude awakening.”

“Wilbur.” Queen Sofia says, disapproving. She’s not wearing any make-up beside her red lipstick and the sight has Wilbur thrown off kilter. “You do not make things easier on yourself do you dear?”

“I don’t actually know what you’re getting at.” Wilbur answers. He gives her his best smile that she narrows her eyes at, “What’s happened since three hours ago?”

Her sigh is long-suffering, more fit for a grandmother than an dictator. She links her hand through his elbow, her nails digging into his arm when Wilbur tries to pull away. “Please don’t play coy. It’s hardly going to help anything now.”

Wilbur is actually genuinely baffled and something of that must show on his face because her grandmotherly facade suddenly breaks under its own weight. The calculating woman finally showing her true face, “There have been….rumors lately. A simple kitchen boy has been sneaking in pieces of paper into bread.”

His insides go cold, he wants to be sick. He smiles instead knowing that he’s practiced enough that it shows up in his eyes despite his horror. 

“That sounds like a choking hazard, I reckon.” Wilbur replies, loftily. “Sneaking love letters to various members of your court, Sofia?”

“No, actually.” Queen Sofia says, matching his tone like they’re old friends sharing gossip. “It seems like they were sending rebels notes around the castle. Specifically it seems to a particular room. Care to guess whose?”

Wilbur stays silent. 

“No guess?” Queen Sofia asks, picking imaginary lint of his shoulder before her hand slips down into her jacket. When she pulls it out a small piece of paper is held in her hand, she reads. “P and T1 have been busy. 1 dam and two peacekeepers.”

Wilbur stays silent. 

“Nothing to say?” She presses, before sighing, “Fine. Please bring it out.”

A pair of peacekeepers disappears from the ranks, their footsteps echoing against the stone until the courtyard falls into complete silence. 

Something awful about the Capitol is the way that there is simple no sounds of nature. Nothing to give any clue that there’s any sign of life beside the toxic population. The lights hide the stars, and the moon is more often then not hidden by the pollution. 

Footsteps and the sound of something dragging across the floor echo down. Wilbur tries to mentally prepare himself for what he will see. 

He could not possible to be prepared for what he sees when the peacekeepers round the corner. The Delivery Avox - how could Wilbur not know their fucking name? How on earth could Wilbur not know their goddamn name - is is being practically slid across the floor.

There is no care to try to keep them them any kind of harm. The peacekeepers drop them, face-down, like they’re a simple sack of potatoes, bow to the Queen, and return to their position. 

“Turn over.” Queen Sofia commands. The Delivery Avox coughs once, twice, and then with a horrible wordless garbled groan does turn over.

Wilbur is so very glad that his stomach is empty because the sudden flip that it does at the sight of the poor man would’ve made him gag otherwise. He moves to do...something...anything to ease the man’s suffering only to hiss when the Queen’s nails dig into the soft flesh of his arm. 

He can only catalog this poor man’s injuries. There are bruises upon bruises, caked blood where here isn’t visible bruises. He’s been rendered practically unrecognizable. Both of his eyes are open but one is limp, lifeless, and bloodshot beyond recognition. The other eye is barely open enough to focus on Wilbur.

Wilbur stares at them horrified beyond belief. 

If he hadn’t already been told who it was Wilbur is certain that he wouldn’t be able to identify him. He turns to glare at the Queen who is watching him steadily. 

“What the fuck?” Wilbur chokes out. “This is horrendous. You utter bitch.”

She hums, her unoccupied hand reaching into her jacket and pulling out a small plaster. She pushes it into his hand. 

“Shoot them.” she commands “You have ten seconds. Ten.”

“What?” Wilbur asks, completely thrown as he glances between the blaster and the man at his feet. He’s never even touched a goddamn blaster before, “I won’t!”

“Nine. Eight. Seven.”

“Wait!” Wilbur pleads, talking over the next numbers. “How can you be sure that you’ve got the right boy? I don’t recognize this one at all.”

“Three.” The Queen says, stressing her words as Wilbur tries to remain calm. The slight frown that crosses her face is the scariest thing that he’s ever seen as she mutters, “Two. One.”

The man flinches as if he expects to hear the sudden blast from above him. His one working eye is grateful when he realizes that Wilbur hasn’t done it. 

“I’m very disappointed in you, Wilbur.” The Queen tuts. 

“You can stuff that disappointment up yours, Sofia.” Wilbur replies, “I’m not gonna just shot a goddamn innocent man!”

“He is hardly innocent.” The Queen sighs.

Before Wilbur can say anything to that she takes the blaster from him and shots the man directly between the eyes. Wilbur yells, finally breaking away from her grip as his injured leg buckles and he hits the ground.

His eyes are caught onto the neatly cauterized wound between the man’s eyes.

“Oh my god.” he breathes. “You utter evil fucking bitch with a goddamn fucking block of ice as a heart.”

The Queen breathes out a sigh, she looks exhausted, “To think, Wilbur. Things could’ve gone so very differently for you and this man. There are reasons for the rules and yet you insist on breaking them and then not understanding the consequences that arise from them.”

She stares at him like she’s waiting for him to make some kind of grand repentance. Instead Wilbur looks above her to the moon that shines weakly behind the smog. 

He hopes that maybe that’ll be the last thing to see before he gets killed. 

“I suppose that there is nothing else to be done then. Please take Mr. Soot away.”

Wilbur scrambles to get away from the suddenly approaching Peacekeepers. He throws a punch, maybe even lands a kick before they finally get still as a needle finds its way into his neck.

“You’ll burn!” Wilbur yells towards the Queen. “You’ll find your way to a hell. You goddamn witch!”

“Maybe so, Mr. Soot.” he hears as his body relaxes against his wishes. “First though I will find this country in order.”

* 

The world passes him by in flashes.

There are lab coats, lab coats and steel tables. There is the understanding, the horror as he fights to get away. The almost escape attempts that he continues to pull despite knowing the futility of it all.

Somewhere. Somewhere far away hopefully Tubbo, Tommy, Techno, and Phil are as safe as they will ever get to be. Hopefully the boys are joking around with each other, hopefully Phil and Techno are sleeping well.

Wilbur wishes desperately he were with them. He closes his eyes against the mask placed over his face. 

He wants to see Phil again. He wants to see his mentor with his warm hugs, his kind smile. The no-nonsense way that he’d taken four scared teenagers and told them to fight with all that they could muster because there would be no kindness. When Wilbur had asked him to deliver a letter when he’d died he’d tucked it into his jacket pocket and had promised. 

Phil’s face had been the first that he’d seen after his games were over.

He wants to see Technoblade again. He wants to see the champion with his filed down tusks and his wry jokes that will send Wilbur to the floor. His untouchable attitude, his unquestioning morals that they talked about in private. The way that he could recite long tomes of books into the cold night air. 

He wants to see Tommy and Tubbo again. The both of them because they have been separated for far too long. He wants to see them both win this war that they accidently started when they crushed poisonous berries into their hands and had moved to end themselves. Their bravery was so vast, so ravenous that it had infected thousands. 

Wilbur wants to see them all. He doesn’t want to be yet another tragedy in the long list that haunts their pasts, their presents, and their futures. 

The needle punctures his dreams and he pants into the oxygen mask like a pinned wild animal. 

“Don’t worry, Mr. Soot. There will be no lasting damage.”

* 

Here is the…

Here is the truth. 

The truth.

He can’t remember what he was going to say.

*

There are very few.

There are are only a few things that Wilbur can remember. 

He can remember.

There had been a great and terrible flood. There had been a great and terrible flood and there had been a hand. A hand that belonged to somebody who was very important. 

(Who was he? Who was he? Who was he?)

The hand and Wilbur had turned trees into rafts when the rain had started. When the rain reached their ankles and showed no sign of stopping. Wilbur had held on until his fingers were numb and his arms were shaking. 

The hand (he loved this person, he must have. Who was he?) had been right there with him until he had gently patted Wilbur’s hand and disappeared into the whirling current. 

He can remember.

He can remember.

He can remember that there had been a man. A man with red hair. A man who laughed loudly and freely in private and smiled gamely for the public. He is important. He is like sunshine after a long cloudy day. Wilbur loves him.

He can remember that there was a...a champion. A champion with dyed pink-hair and implanted tusks that he hated. He doesn’t smile but he laughs sometimes. His tusk hurt him. His tusk hurt him and he hadn’t wanted them. His low voice had recited poetry turned mist into the cold night air. Wilbur loves him.

There are two boys. There are two boys somewhere where Wilbur can’t protect them. They are in danger. They are so very brave and Wilbur is so very proud of them. They are so very brave and Wilbur is so very frightened for them.

He is so very frightened for them because...he is frightened because...he is…

“I would like to go to bed now.” Wilbur informs the woman who never speaks, who guards him. He does not remember how he got into this strange garden. “Please. Please take me back to bed.”

She nods, an expression that he can’t quite understand flying across her face. She gently takes his arm and leads him through unfamiliar hallways into an almost familiar room. 

This isn’t his bed but it will do.

*

The truth.

The truth is…

The truth is that Wilbur knows that they must have done something wrong when they had decided to break him. 

He knows this because he can vaguely remember a woman tsking in disappointment. Another voice saying something convincing that he hadn’t understood. He knows this because there are always people trying to teach him things that he keeps forgetting.

They had done something wrong when they had broken him.

Wilbur doesn’t even usually remember why they had decided to break him. Usually but today the tea given with his morning breakfast hadn’t tasted the same. It hadn’t tasted the same and Wilbur has been staring at the red roses all morning chasing the tantalizing understanding resting just out reach. 

He had been broken because there had been rules that he’d broken.

Many rules that he hadn’t followed. 

He had ran with the mentor, the champion, and the boy. He had been racing with them through an overgrown field towards something hazy and loud. A hazy and loud thing that was going to save them. 

Except...Except there had been...something had hit the mentor. Something had hit the mentor and Wilbur had thrown himself back. 

He’d thrown himself back because there had been five guards in white. Five guards in white and they would’ve killed the mentor or worse. (This is worse. This is worse. This is worse.)

Wilbur touches his cheek, surprised when it comes back wet. 

The tea that comes with his lunch is as bitter as ever.

The truth is...the truth is...the truth is…

“I would like to go to bed now.” Wilbur informs the woman who never speaks, who guards him. He does not remember how he got into this strange garden. “Please. Please take me back to bed.”

She nods, an sad expression settled on her face. She gently takes his arm and leads him through unfamiliar hallways into an almost familiar room. 

This isn’t his bed but it will do.

*

The books that Wilbur are suppose to read are...not true.

He scribbles half-written notes into the margins before his thoughts leave him. He rips pages out of the books. He cries hot tears that drip off the edge of his nose and blur the pristine white and black pages.

“I don’t understand,” he tries to explain to the silent woman who is trying to comfort him. “I don’t understand. There is something wrong. There is something wrong.”

She hesitates before shaking her head. She grabs a pen, half of a ripped page and writes, “There is nothing wrong with you, Wilbur. You are as you should be.”

“Are you sure?” Wilbur demands, wiping away angry tears. She is lying to him but she doesn’t want to be. She is frightened of something that Wilbur can’t understand. 

“Please calm down.” She writes again, “We need to be calm here. They will hurt us.”

Wilbur sucks in a deep breath, lets it out. Counts until his breathing can match his own pattern. 

“I’m calm. I’m calm.” Wilbur reassures her. (Reassures the monsters that he can’t remember. He can’t remember but he has scars. He has scars where hair once was and there is something that he can’t understand because they had  _ broken him.) _

“I would like to go to bed now.” Wilbur asks, he does not remember how he got into this strange room with its feet high bookshelves. “Please. Please just let me go to sleep.”

The silent woman nods, leading him gently through unfamiliar hallways into an almost familiar room. 

The bed is not his but it will do. 

He curls up on top of his bed. Stares up at her, wishes that he could remember who she is. 

“I won’t let them hurt you.” he whispers. “I’ll remember.”

She taps him gently on the shoulder in acknowledgement. 

*

"Thank you." he mummers with a smile as he stares down into it's murky depths.

The Avox gently taps his shoulder in response.

He blinks. Three short dots.

He blinks. Three long dashes.

He blinks. Three short dots.

His reflection stares blankly back at him. 

**Author's Note:**

> if you liked this please leave a kudos and a comment! They are really appreciated and I'm still blown away from the warm reception I got on my last one. 
> 
> If you would like to come chat or send me a prompt you can find me at sleepy-bois-incorporated.tumblr.com.


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